Re: Becoming a new Developer
Chris McKillop <cdmckill@warg.uwaterloo.ca> writes:
> How long does it usually take for the developer application to be
> processed? I have heard depressing comments on irc of over 10
> months. Can anyone confirm/deny this for me?
Some random comments in no particular order, because I can't be
bothered to take the time to write a proper reply to all the mails in
this thread.
Processing can take under 10 minutes or it can take > 1.5 years+. The
former is rare, but has happened 2 or 3 times, the latter is
surprisingly common, but is always because we're waiting for the
applicant to get back to _us_ and not vice-versa.
Don't believe everything you hear on IRC, or even much from certain
people on IRC.
New maintainer is incredibly annoying for too many reasons to list,
but one particularly relevant annoyance is that applicants
expectations for processing time vary wildly. I've phoned people
after inexcusable delays, and they've calmly said `That's all right, I
haven't even started on my package yet, and probably won't for a
while'. Or you get people who have pestered you endlessly for a
speedy processing and then don't do anything as a developer for weeks
if not months after their application is processed.
You can speed up your application by providing all the relevant
information as is laid out in the developers reference. It's
depressing how many people still don't do this despite the excellent
work of both Christian and Adam.
No, I'm not prepared to put an auto-responder on the
new-maintainer@debian.org address. Just trust it got there, and if
you're unsure mail us a short note. We don't mind people pestering us
with short notes after suitable delays. I do object pretty violently
to people resending large scans, I pay for my calls by the minute and
I'm on a slow 28.8 (and besides, it's a principal thing). In a
similar vein, please scale down scans, a 500k scan is usually just as
useful as a 5Mb scan.
I'm sorry for all the people that having been waiting a long time.
I'll try and get round to you as soon as possibly can, but read on.
The phone calls do often cause delays. I do think they're necessary,
and I'm not prepared to stop doing them. No, I can't email before I
call, simply because I never know when I'll have the time/energy[1] to
call till the last minute and by then there's not much point.
The phone calls are about to become much less of a problem, as I'm
going to start giving out my contact information so people can
_optionally_ phone me, when it's convenient for *them* (with some basic
exceptions [Hi, Ed :p]). This will be entirely optional, and won't
cost the applicant much (I'll call them right back, if I can), and
will I hope avoid the problems of missing people or people giving us
telephone numbers for what are virtually dedicated modem lines. I
trialled this last week and with one exception (Hi, Ed :p) it worked
well, and applicants seemed to respond favourably to the idea.
Anyway, I think I've rambled enough.
--
James
"The trick is to keep breathing."
[1] The majority of calls are either done (my time) late at night,
very early in the morning (Hi, Ed :p) or early in the morning. I have
a ridiculously demanding job, which keeps me away from Debian more
than I would like and which requires a certain amount of sleep from me
per night.
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